They Told Me I Was Everything (The First Quarto Book 1) Read online

  It was laughable, unbelievably ridiculous, because he knew he should call them. He knew whatever he was involved in, it was worse than anything he’d gotten into before. But he kept hearing Glasses say or ask your family to bail you out, and he pictured Fer, the butt of the pistol cracking across his face.

  Auggie staggered into the bathroom. He made sure the door to the other suite was locked, and then he washed his face and rinsed out his mouth, spitting pink water into the basin, where it swirled away into the drain. His eyes stung worse and worse, and then he was sobbing, bent over the sink, his whole body shaking as he tried to be quiet, tried to calm himself down. Bits and pieces of it kept coming back: the humiliating slaps that had driven him across the room, the sudden powerlessness as he was forced onto the bed, the fist cracking against his teeth, the cold steel of the gun against his skin.

  “Holy shit,” Orlando said from the doorway. “What happened to you?”

  Auggie shut the water off, grabbed his towel, and pushed past Orlando, drying his face as he went.

  “Hey,” Orlando said, his thick brows drawn together as he caught Auggie’s shoulder. “Who the fuck did this?”

  “I gotta go,” Auggie said, trying to twist away.

  “Like hell. Tell me who did this. I’m going to murder the son of a bitch.”

  “Get the fuck off me,” Auggie shouted, slapping Orlando’s hand away.

  He plunged out into the hallway. Brad, from two doors down, was standing in his doorway staring. Auggie ignored him and rushed for the stairs, but he could hear Orlando coming after him, the murmur of low voices. Great, Auggie thought. Perfect. They’d all heard him shouting at Orlando, but nobody had heard a fucking peep when Glasses had been threatening to kneecap him.

  When Auggie got outside, he was so wrapped up in himself that he didn’t hear the voices until he’d covered almost twenty yards of the quad.

  “Hey, kid, I said hold the fuck up.”

  Auggie glanced over his shoulder. A man and woman were coming after him. The man was huge, his head shaved, a Celtic cross tattoo taking up most of one forearm. The woman was tall and thin, bleached hair in a ponytail, a swastika tattoo on her cheek.

  “Yeah, you,” the woman shouted. “We want to talk to you.”

  Auggie turned and ran.

  8

  The bus getting to Downing had been late. Then the bus coming back had been late too. Then Theo had gotten distracted by Astrophil and Stella and missed his stop, and he’d gotten off half a mile north of campus. He’d had to walk the half mile because there wasn’t a bus that would take him back—not for another half hour, anyway. The September day was hot; his clothes were soaked with sweat by the time he reached Liversedge Hall, and he could already feel the beginning of a sunburn. Worse, the bus had smelled like BO and fire-lime Takis, and now the smell clung to Theo as he limped onto the elevator and wiped sweat from his face. A moment later, one of the Philosophy Department secretaries got into the car—prissy, gangly Solomon, who looked around the car and wrinkled his nose. When they got to the third floor, Theo limped off the elevator; he heard Solomon say, “Absolutely disgusting” as the doors closed.

  Theo considered calling the elevator back. He could ride up to the Philosophy offices. He could find Solomon, who kept a row of faux Art Deco figurines on his desk, all of them vaguely resembling Cher. He could smash those little ceramic Chers one by one. And if Solomon made a fucking peep, Theo could shove the Chers down his fucking throat.

  Instead, he decided on his second-best option for dealing with a shitty day: reading poetry.

  After the half-mile walk, Theo needed the cane more than usual as he made his way down the hall to his office. Light shone behind the pebbled glass, and he braced himself for Grace, for the questions, for the concern, for the long, lingering looks of sympathy. When he opened the door, the fragrance of microwaved masala met him, and a plastic TV tray steamed in front of Grace’s computer, but Grace was miraculously absent. Dawson’s desk and computer still looked like they hadn’t been touched this year; Theo figured that Dawson was on track to finish the PhD sometime in 2030 at this rate.

  Settling himself at the desk, Theo had just propped his cane against the wall and stretched out his aching leg when someone hammered on the door.

  “Go away,” Theo shouted. “This is not office hours.”

  The door flew open, and Auggie Lopez tumbled into the room. He looked around, his dark eyes wide, and then he shut the door and leaned against it.

  “Please,” Auggie said. “Please tell them I’m not here.”

  “What? Who?” Theo struggled to get to his feet, but his leg was starting to stiffen. He grabbed the cane. “What’s going on?”

  “Please,” Auggie whispered.

  The door thumped as someone tried to force it open.

  “Hey,” Theo said. “What the hell is going on out there?” He limped toward Auggie, pushed him into the corner behind the door, and threw open the door.

  A big guy with a buzzed head stumbled, off balance without the resistance of the door. Next to him, a blond woman with a swastika on her cheek had one hand behind her back. Theo had been married to a cop. He’d grown up in a rough part of a rough county. He’d worked the first five years after high school logging, and loggers—the guys he’d worked with, anyway—were some of the biggest assholes in the world. He knew when a fight was a fight, and he knew when a fight was something else. This was something else.

  “I’ve had a really bad morning,” Theo said. “So get out of here, right now, before I take it out on you.”

  The big guy recovered his balance. “Out of the way, teacher.” He put a big paw on Theo’s shoulder, already shoving forward. “We’ve got business with that little bitch.”

  “Get out of my office,” Theo said, fetching up against Grace’s desk. Masala slopped out of the TV tray, spattering his hands, the superheated sauce burning him. Theo felt it at a remove; his blood was up. He kept his eyes straight ahead, so as not to draw attention to Auggie, hidden behind the door now.

  “Where is that little pussy?” the man asked. “Auggie, where the fuck is Robert?”

  “How many lines does a sonnet have?” Theo asked, pushing up from the desk.

  “What the fuck are you—”

  Theo headbutted him. The key to a good headbutt was to use the solid bone of the forehead as the point of impact. Theo had been in a lot of bar fights. Theo had an asshole younger brother who had dragged him into a few more serious scrapes. And Theo had lived and worked with guys who carried knives and didn’t think twice about using them. For Theo, the only good fight was the one that ended absolutely as quickly as possible. A headbutt was a really good way of doing that.

  The big guy was still turning, drawn by the strangeness of the question, when Theo connected. Theo felt the bridge of the man’s nose crumple. The man screamed and went down; he had his hands over his nose, and he was kicking, his legs catching in Grace’s chair as he pinwheeled on the ground.

  “You’re dead,” the blond woman screamed. Her hand came out from behind her back, and she charged into the office with a gun.

  “Now,” Theo shouted.

  Auggie barreled into the door, and it caught the woman completely by surprise. She crashed up against the doorframe, pinned between the jamb and the door. Theo swung the cane as hard as he could. It connected with her hand, and the woman shrieked. She dropped the gun. Auggie was still bearing down on the door, which was real wood, heavy and solid, and Theo swung the cane again and caught the woman across the face. She screamed again. Somehow, she slipped free of the door and back into the hallway. Auggie stumbled over the big guy and grabbed the gun. The dark-haired kid was panting, his hands shaking as he dragged the door open and pointed the weapon at the woman.

  “Ok,” Theo said, his voice sounding distant over the rush of blood in his ears, and he touched Auggie’s shoulder. The kid flinched. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  It wasn’t just Auggie’s hands that were trembling; the kid was shaking all over.

  “Auggie,” Theo said quietly. “Get your finger off the trigger, please.”

  The whoosh of Theo’s heartbeat made it hard to hear; he felt like they were in a vacuum, just the two of them, and nothing he was saying was reaching Auggie. Theo let his fingers slide down Auggie’s arm, bump over his wrist, and wrap around his hand. Then he freed the gun from Auggie’s grip.

  “That’s good, Auggie. You did really good.”

  The woman had stopped screaming, and now she crouched on the floor. One hand was over her face, covering where Theo had struck her with the cane. The other hand hung at her side; several fingers were obviously broken. On the floor of the office, the big guy had stopped pinwheeling, but he still had both hands over his broken nose, and blood streamed between his fingers.

  “I’m calling security,” Theo told the woman.

  She stared at him for a moment. Then she stood. “Jerome,” she said. “Jerome, get your fucking ass off the fucking floor. Right now, Jerome.”

  Somehow, the big man got to his knees. He crawled to the doorway, past Theo and Auggie, and the woman helped him to his feet.

  “You stupid fucks don’t have any idea—” she shouted.

  Theo slammed the door and locked it. Then he grabbed the phone on Grace’s desk and dialed campus security. The dispatcher promised to send someone over right away and told Theo to stay in the office. When the dispatcher asked if Theo wanted to stay on the line, he said no and hung up. Then he finally got his first good look at Auggie.

  Something bad had happened to the kid. A bruise was darkening on his jawline, and his lip was split again—Theo felt a flash of guilt for that—but mostly it was the terror in his face. The kind of scared look Luke had worn too many times for Theo to count: when he’d dealt bad weed in high school and had Billy Schoening and his gang hunting him down; when he’d gotten Tammy Kluth pregnant, and the Kluth boys were hunting him down; when he’d cut baggies of crystal meth with Pop Rocks and had the Ozark Volunteers hunting him down.

  “Sit down,” Theo said, touching Auggie’s arm, intending to steer him toward a seat. “You look like you’re—”

  And then, before Theo knew what was happening, Auggie was stepping forward, obviously having mistaken the movement as the beginning of a hug. He wrapped his arms around Theo and buried his face in Theo’s shoulder as he shook.

  “Ok,” Theo said. He stood there with no idea what to do. Luke had never wanted a hug. Luke had never wanted anything but for Theo to fix it. After a moment, Theo felt stupid standing with his arms out to the side, so he patted Auggie’s back. “Hey, it’s ok. You did good. You handled yourself really well.”

  Auggie started to sob.

  “All right,” Theo said. It sounded very stupid, but he had no idea what else to say. “It’s going to be all right.”

  They stood like that for a few more minutes, Auggie crying, Theo alternating between patting his back and rubbing slow circles.

  “I’m so stupid,” Auggie said, pulling away. “Oh my God, I’m so fucking stupid. I’m sorry. There was this guy, and he—I don’t know, and then they were waiting outside, and they started yelling, and I just ran. I . . . I don’t even know why I came here, I just didn’t know where else to go.”

  “Auggie.”

  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have gotten you involved, I shouldn’t have come here. I’m so sorry. Please don’t tell anyone about this.”

  “Auggie—”

  “Please, oh my God, my mom will kill me. Please. You cannot tell anyone.”

  “Your mom? This is way more serious. Anyway, it’s too late for that, ok? I called campus security. They’re on their way.”

  “Oh my God,” Auggie said, his voice rising with panic. “He’s going to kill me. He said if I went to the police he’d kill me.”

  It was Luke all over again. Theo wanted to scream. He knew every line in this fucking performance by heart.

  He had found Luke in the hayloft, shot up with enough heroin to kill a horse. What Theo remembered, when he remembered that day, were the flies crawling on Luke’s eyes.

  Auggie’s eyes were very brown and very wide. Helpless eyes.

  Theo said, “Sit down. I need you to tell me everything, but first we have to get our story straight.”

  9

  When campus security left, Auggie was alone with Theo in the office; a girl with a cloud of brown curls had stopped by briefly to pick up the microwaved meal on her desk. She’d tried to hang around until one of the security guards asked her to leave. Now, Auggie sat next to Theo’s desk, replaying snatches of the day—the Community theme song, the pile of pillows squished behind him, the fragrance of Orlando’s soap, the sun hot on his neck as he ran across campus, the weight of the gun in his hand. His eyes moved to Theo’s desk.

  Theo seemed to sense his thoughts because he put a hand on the drawer.

  “Why did you lie to them?” Auggie asked. Theo had spun a story about meth heads trying to steal the computers. He hadn’t said anything about the distinguishing tattoos. He hadn’t said anything about the gun. Now that the guards had left, from time to time he rubbed his head, and Auggie remembered the sudden, brutal viciousness of the headbutt. Theo wasn’t excessively tall or big, but he was definitely strong, and he also apparently knew how to beat the shit out of white supremacist gang bangers. Not exactly what Auggie had expected from his Shakespeare professor.

  “You told me this couldn’t go to the police,” Theo said. “If I tell campus security that two white trash assholes with a gun broke into my office to abduct a student, they’re going to take it to the police.”

  “I mean, why are you helping me?”

  “I’m part of a freshman transition-to-success program,” Theo said. “We’re supposed to handle this kind of stuff.”

  “Oh,” Auggie said.

  “That was a joke.”

  “Oh,” Auggie said again.

  Theo sat back; his chair bumped a banker’s box on the floor behind him, and he flinched without seeming to realize it. “You gave me the reader’s digest version while security was on the way over. I want to hear the whole thing.”

  So Auggie told him. When he’d finished, he said, “And now this asshole is going to kill me, or those people he sicced on me, they’re going to kill me, or Christ, I don’t know. I am in such deep shit.”

  Theo said, “It’s not the same group.”

  “What?”

  “The guy who was in your dorm room, he works for someone else.”

  “Those guys were literally waiting outside my building after he finished knocking me around.”

  “Exactly,” Theo said. “If they were working for that guy, why wouldn’t they have come upstairs with him and really put a scare in you? Why wait outside and do the whole show a second time?”

  “Because—I don’t know. Because they’re not that smart. Because they thought it would send a message. Fuck, I don’t know, because they forgot to get my organ donor info for when they blow out my brains.”

  “Nope. They’re working for somebody else. And that means two groups of people are ridiculously interested in the disappearance of a college senior who’s graduating in December.”

  “Robert’s a freshman.”

  “No,” Theo said. “He told me he was a senior.”

  “He’s definitely a freshman. He rushed with the freshmen. He’s a Sigma Sigma pledge too.”

  Theo tightened and relaxed his hands, knuckles popping. “Whatever. Drugs. It’s got to be drugs.”

  “I don’t do drugs. I mean, I smoked some weed, but that’s basically legal in Orange County. What?”

  “This isn’t about weed.”

  “No, you made this little face. I mean, your mouth. I don’t know. What does that mean?”

  “Of course Orange County,” Theo said. Then, before Auggie could ask what that meant, he said, “Does your roommate do drugs? Could he be involved in this somehow? Never mind, that doesn’t make any sense. They wanted to know about Robert. Why do they think you’re involved with Robert?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t even know him.”

  “Do you always do fun things with strangers like steal a car and drive drunk and almost kill somebody?”

  “I didn’t steal—”

  “Jesus Christ. Just don’t, ok? I’m trying to help you, so don’t insult me by lying to me.”

  Face hot, Auggie stared past Theo, looking out a window that had a great view of South Quad.

  “I’m not just talking about almost killing me,” Theo said. “I was being stupid, I get that. I shouldn’t have been in the road.”

  “You were trying to kill yourself,” Auggie said. On the quad below, a girl with a yellow backpack had spilled her books, and a guy with a man bun had stopped to help her pick them up. She was laughing. He was laughing. They were taking a lot longer than they needed to, just to pick up a few books. And Auggie wondered what that would be like, to just be able to have things happen like that. He realized the silence had dragged on.

  “No,” Theo said like he was explaining a difficult passage. “I wasn’t. Anyway, my point is that you could have hit another car, you could have crashed into pedestrians on the sidewalk, you could have hit a tree or a building and killed yourself and Robert.”

  “I don’t need another dad, for the love of fuck.”

  Theo’s blond eyebrows arched slightly. The hum of the computer’s fan sounded like a tornado.

  Auggie let his gaze slide back to Theo. “Look, I get it. I screwed up. It’s not going to happen again. I’m here to get my life back on track; I’m not going to let it happen again.”

  “Get your life back on track? What does that mean?”